| Piero Angela | |
|---|---|
Piero Angela in 1993 |
|
| Born | December 22, 1928 Turin, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Occupation | Science Journalist Pianist |
| Religion | Atheist |
| Children | Alberto Angela |
Piero Angela, Grand Officer OMRI (born 22 December 1928) is an Italian science journalist and writer, and pianist. He was born in Turin.
Contents |
Son of the Turinese physician and antifascist Carlo Angela, around the age of seven he began taking private piano lessons and developing interest in jazz music. At the age of twenty, in 1948, he was performing jam sessions in various jazz clubs around Italy. In the same year he was noticed by entrepreneur Sergio Bernardini, who invited him to play at the opening evening of the Capannina night club in Forte dei Marmi.
In the early 1950s he formed a musical trio, along with drummer Franco Mondini and several alternating double bassists. The trio often played with other artists, such as Nini Rosso, Franco Pisano and former Duke Ellington cornetist Rex Stewart.
Hired by RAI, at the time the Italian State radio broadcaster, in 1952 Angela stopped his professional music work to devote himself to journalism. Angela sometimes played piano in one of his TV scientific programs.
His first job at RAI was as a reporter and collaborator of the radio news; with the advent of television in 1954 Angela became a correspondent for the television news, first from Paris and later from Brussels, from 1955 to 1968. Together with Andrea Barbato, he anchored the first lunchtime edition of the Italian TV news in 1968 and, in 1976, became the first anchorman of the newly born second Italian network.
Influenced by Roberto Rossellini, in 1968 Piero Angela realized a series of documentaries titled Il futuro nello spazio ("Future in space"), centered on the Apollo Program and the quest of taking the first astronaut to the Moon). Thus began his long activity of informal science education, that brought him to host and produce several information programs in the following years.
At the end of the 1970s, Angela decided to entirely devote himself to scientific TV programs and in 1981 went on to produce Quark, the first show of the kind in Italy aimed at a general public.
The format relied on the most advanced technological means and the latest communication techniques available at the time, in order to make scientific topics accessible to the average family. Examples include featuring documentaries by the BBC and by David Attenborough, or cartoons by Bruno Bozzetto in order to help visualize the most abstract concepts; interviewing experts who strove to use the simplest possible language adequate to the complexity of subjects; or staging experiments and explanations directly in the studio. This first program originated many different spin-offs, some of which still exist, dedicated to different subjects: naturalistic documentaries (Quark speciale and Il mondo di Quark), finance (Quark Economia) and politics (Quark Europa).
In 1984 a new project, Pillole di Quark, first aired on Rai Uno, consisting of short 30-second clips about technical, medical, scientific, social and educational topics. In the same year Piero Angela produced the first talk-show to mix entertainment with science education finalities: six prime-time shows with live public interacting with public figures from culture, science, media and sports.
In 1986 and in 1987, from Turin's indoor arena, he hosted two prime-time events aired on Rai Uno centered on climate problems, followed by three TV series exploiting newly developed computer graphics technologies, staging a trip inside the human body (La Macchina meravigliosa: eight episodes), life in pre-human times (Il pianeta dei dinosauri: four episodes), and outer space (Viaggio nel cosmo: seven episodes). Such series, realized with the collaboration of his son Alberto, was translated into English and sold in over forty countries in Europe, the Americas and Asia (including Arabic countries and China).
Quark italiani, a series of documentaries about nature, the environment, explorations, and the animal world, produced and filmed by Italian authors (among which Alberto Angela, who realized some documentaries in Africa), also aired in 1988.
In 1995 Superquark was launched, and on 4 June 1999 two thousand episodes of the Quark franchise were celebrated. In the same year Speciali di Superquark (evenings dedicated to a single issue of great social, psychological and scientific interest) was also kicked off, and a collaboration was started with the Sunday TV program Domenica In, where Piero Angela hosted a space devoted to culture.
Since 2000 Piero and Alberto Angela also produce and host Ulisse, a program consisting of episodes centered about historical and scientific subjects.
Together with his popular activity on television, Piero Angela has been active in scientific awareness publishing. He is the long-time editor of the space "Scienza e società " on the magazine TV Sorrisi e Canzoni; in 2001 he founded the monthly magazine Quark, modeled on the show of the same name, which he also edited and supervised, and later closed in 2006 for lack of funds.
Piero Angela is also the author of over thirty books, many of which translated into English, German and Spanish, with overall sales volume of over three million copies.
In 1989 Piero Angela was among the co-founders of CICAP, an association promoting scientific and critical investigation of claims on paranormal phenomena.
During his long career Piero Angela has received numerous recognitions in Italy and other countries, among which the Kalinga Prize of UNESCO for his contributions to public awareness of science, and several honorary degrees (currently eight).
He likes to play chess from time to time, though he never takes part in tournaments. In 2006 he was a guest of honour at the 37th Chess Olympiad, played in his home city.
All the following programs have been broadcast by Rai Uno.